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paleo and me

I’ve had a great big bump in blog views lately thanks to my review of Make It Paleo and the amazing authors sharing it on Facebook, and it’s really made me want to share more of my story…and a few photos.

Deep breath…here goes…

I’ve struggled with my weight and my relationship with food for as long as I can remember. I’ve battled between binge eating and obsessive dieting, sometimes falling into unhealthy workout and harmful purging habits. In high school, I discovered fat-free and Snackwell’s and ate pasta every day. In college and my early years as a wife and mother, I gained and lost the same 40 or 50 pounds on a fairly regular basis.

I thought I had finally found a place of health a few years ago after losing 70 pounds on Weight Watchers, but even that was a struggle. I constantly fought cravings and it was nearly impossible for me to maintain my weightloss.

Seven months after I stopped Weight Watchers, I came home from a women’s retreat and became ill. What started as a low fever and body aches quickly developed into frozen and swollen joints, and complete mental fuzziness and confusion within a week. By the end of that month, I had more or less every symptom you could list for fibromyalgia…even though my doctor continued to be certain that it was all in my head. I gained 40 pounds in less than 2 months, with another 30 piling on within the next three.

What followed was 18 months of confusion. I didn’t really respond to fibromyalgia medications and was having horrible side effects to the anti-depressants my doctor was convinced I needed…probably because I didn’t. I’ve lived with depression on an off since middle school – this wasn’t it. My gynecologist thought I had classic symptoms of insulin resistance, tested me for it, and told me to pull all refined flour and sugar from my diet. I ate very little flour and almost no sugar for a month, lost 10 pounds, felt a little better, and then went back to my normal diet when the blood tests said insulin resistance wasn’t my problem.

This went on and on until August 2010. Pain, confusion, stress, anxiety, more pain, more stress, and so much frustration because I felt like my body was betraying me. My normal diet has always been fairly clean, full of lots of fruits and vegetables and lean meats. With the added stress of a new school year and one child having a particularly difficult time adapting, I found myself moving far away from that normal diet to lots of fast food and junk food and feeling worse than ever before.

I noticed, though, for the first time how truly horrible I felt after each meal – especially when they were wheat heavy, like a dinner at Bucca di Beppo that left me feeling like I was in a coma…underwater…and incapable of putting together a coherent sentence – and started to wonder…

maybe gluten was the problem.

I’d felt so much better that month I stayed away from refined sugar and flour. I did a few internet searches and decided to go for it. Within a few days, the mental fog started to clear. Before the first month ended, the joint pain was gone. At two months, it was beyond obvious that gluten had been my problem all along. Now that I’m over a year gluten-free, I have no fibromyalgia symptoms at all. I lost about 25 of those pesky pounds I gained in the first year, and another 25 over the last eight months. The mild depression that I’ve battled since middle school went away.

I started studying paleo three or four months ago, after a failed attempt at vegetarianism. I’d noticed during that time that I was relying more and more on grains and legumes, and some stomach issues I hadn’t dealt with for a while flared back up. I was fighting for energy levels – even while making certain to get lots of animal free protein. And I just didn’t feel good.

I’ve been reading about nutrition for quite a few years now – spending a little time dabbling in Weston Price stuff, learning about things like micronutrients – and knew that what my body wanted was a whole foods based diet that was also non-imflammatory. The more I studied, the more I became convinced that paleo was something I needed to commit to.

It didn’t take long to figure out that paleo was the answer I’ve been looking for all along. My weight, which had plateaued for the last six months regardless of what I ate or how much I exercised, started dropping again. The stomach issues are a thing of the past. Sugar cravings are gone.

Food is simply that – food. Fuel for my body. It’s not something I obsess about, it’s not something I feel guilt or anxiety over. It’s just food.

Even more than that, I feel good. When I look at that picture from December two years ago, all I can see is how unhealthy I was. Not just over-weight, but chronically ill. My skin looks gray, my face swollen, even my posture is bad.

Now, I feel amazing – I have energy to run through my day, I sleep like a rock for 8 hours straight, my skin glows. I’m finally enjoying the health and wellness I lost and have fought so hard to get back. I can be active with my kids and keep up with my two-year old nephew every day.

I still have further to go. I’d like to lose some more weight, but as Stacy shared last week on Paleo Parents my goal has evolved. I want to be at a comfortable weight – something I don’t have to fight day in and out to maintain. I’d like to go down about one or two more pant sizes, but realize that I have good German birthing hips and I’ll never be a size 7. With cooler weather and shorter days, I’m struggling to get exercise in regularly and I know that will help me firm up even further.

I’m worth it. I’m worth taking a few extra minutes to plan meals…to cook extra chicken for lunch the next day…to order crazy requests at restaurants…to reprioritize my budget when needed to feed my family food that nourishes them in the best possible ways.

10 thoughts on “paleo and me”

It’s interesting – people in our society assume that if you are on any type of restriction diet (and especially one that works) that you are deprived, are tired, and are not happy to be on the plan. People assume that you miss what you choose not to eat.

But with Paleo – after the initial introduction period you really feel great! Your energy level goes up, and you don’t suffer the blood sugar crashes that you don’t on a grain based diet.

I think my lightbulb moment was realizing that a more restricted diet leads to a more full life. And that’s a trade I’m more than willing to make.

It’s hard for me to consider my diet restricted, though. I *can* eat so many different foods and am constantly trying new recipes – which is far less restrictive to me than Big Macs, pizza, pasta and chicken nuggets on a weekly rotation.

REMARKABLE!
I woke this morning to day 29 of my paleo journey to find you’d opened yourself up to share with us your struggles and successes. It was fuel for me to keep going. I relate to your story in many ways and seeing/reading about what you’ve learned brings the future into focus a little more for me. Its good to be able to pull wisdom from others who have more experience in this “paleo world” and run with it. Thank you so much for the work and time you put into your blog. May God bless you richly today according to His riches in heaven!!

Thank you, Mary! I’m meeting more and more people who have struggled with fibromyalgia and other issues who are finding healing by taking grains or at least gluten out of their diet. It doesn’t work for everyone, but I do truly believe its worth giving it a month to try it.